Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Whenever I see my colleagues
riding motorbikes in a group going out on holidays I know that I am missing all
the fun and adventure of biking. I used to be an avid biker few decades back
and to be exact 33 years back ….when we guys used to zoom about in the city
racing one another and having fun with the rush of wind on your face while
riding. Those days few makes of the bikes were cannibalized and the end product
would be owner’s pride and while it is ridden through the locality one would
know as to who is driving by. Also another thing of the past was throaty roar
of bikes whose silencers have been removed and the racket it creates while throttling
used to scare other vehicles to veer away from the bike. There were times when
we used to make trips from Chennai to Tirupati just for the heck of driving and
used to have lodes of fun. But after one fateful day way back in 1981 when two
of my friends were crushed to death under the city bus I stopped riding bikes
and till this day still have the fear of riding one.

It is said that once a person
learns to cycle he/she can never forget to balance the two wheelers throughout
lifetime similar to swimming so few years down the line my friends have tried
pushing me to ride a bike and when I tried my whole body went rigid and I rode
the bike similar to a beginner quite unsteadily…a psychological fear that has
never left me!! Recently I was browsing the net and I came across portal sharing
similar experience by persons and the remedy to such fear. They describe that
immediately after such incidents or accidents one must not stop riding for a
long period of time otherwise they would experience the feeling I have now. I
am comfortable driving four wheelers and have been doing that from 1982 but then
have stopped riding two wheelers.

I wish that I had not shirked
away from riding a bike way back in 1981…. I would have had greater fun here in
Oman.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Few months back in the late
afternoon I get a frantic call from my wife saying that she had just come out
of the clutches of dark forces and she begged me to come back to home
immediately. I rushed back from office and reached home in record 45 minutes weaving
through the rush hour traffic from Kathipara Junction (at Chennai). On reaching
home I saw my wife sitting forlorn on the sofa and on enquiry she told me that
she had gone for afternoon siesta and when she wanted to get up she was unable
to do so and she felt paralyzed by an immense weight pressing her down. She
said she was a victim of amuku pishsasi ..a term in Tamil which means a
pressing or crushing ghost and for a long time she was wide awake but then was
not able to move any part of her body or limbs. I rubbished her thoughts of
ghost and told her not to worry but then she was not willing to accept my explanation
and she kept telling of similar episodes her grandmother had encountered and
recounted about the ghostly experience to her and her siblings and warning them
of such attacks. I tried my best to calm her down and to remove her fears did a
Google research and I found out about “Sleep Paralysis” and the Wikipedia’s explanation
is as under

Sleep paralysis is a
phenomenon in which people, either when falling asleep or wakening, temporarily
experience a sense of inability to move, similar to when an arm or leg goes
to sleep, but not associated with numbness. More formally, it is a
transition state between wakefulness and rest characterized by complete muscle
atonia (muscle weakness). It can occur at sleep onset or when awakening. It is
believed a result of disrupted REM sleep, which is normally characterized by
complete muscle atonia that prevents individuals from acting out their dreams.
Sleep paralysis has been linked to disorders such as narcolepsy, migraines,
anxiety disorders, and obstructive sleep apnea; however, it can also occur in
isolation.

I was surprised to note that such
incidents of sleep paralysis were in folk lore of many countries around the
world and was considered to be the work of a demon. British and some parts of
America called it “Old Hag”, in Finland and Sweden as “Mare”, in Turkey as “Karabasan”,
in Thailand as “Phi Am”, in Hungary as “Boszorkany”,in Nepal as “Khyaak”, in
Tamilnadu, India as “Amuku Pei” and the list goes on and on and I can fill the
entire page with the names of the demon. Only after reading this article did my
wife relax much to the relief of my daughters and me.

Monday, October 8, 2012

This post is mainly about smoking
and hence I need to put up this slogan “Cigarette smoking is injurious to
health “. A colleague of mine regularly keeps borrowing cigarettes from all
other persons at the smoking zone each time he feels like smoking instead of
buying the same on his own..and in spite of subtle suggestion by some to buy
his own packets he still continues live of others. The same person in the late
evenings keeps popping into my flat for having a free drink and couple of
smokes. Now this is quite irritating that each day you have an uninvited guest
at home and also intrusion to my privacy and space but then since he is my neighbor
and a friend I could not bluntly tell him that he is not welcome each day of
the week. Instead another friend of mine jokingly told him that all of us here
have come to earn money and there cannot be freebees on a daily basis. From then on whenever he come home (frequency
reduced considerably) he does brings over his own drink and the only thing he
still ask is the cigarettes since he cannot have cigarette packet in his home
since his wife would crucify him. Now days he maintains a packet of cigarette
at the office and he has changed for better.

On this note I am reminded of a
person with whom I worked at Iraq in 1981 and the incident that took place with
him then which I narrate now. I was just 24 years old and I took up an
assignment as a junior electrical engineer with an Indian firm that had picked
up a largest construction contract awarded to an Indian company at Baghdad. I
and eight other persons traveled to Baghdad as one of the initial mobilization
teams to set up the construction site and among us there was a senior
electrical engineer from Bangalore who was aged between 38-40 and all others
were in my age group. This person whose
name I am not able to recollect ( Let me call him “K”) had the same infuriating
habit of living on other peoples things in spite of getting much higher salary.
Initially all was well since we were just about 15 staff based in unknown land
and we used to go around various places of Iraq on weekends without giving many
thoughts to K’s habit. The staff strength increased constantly and in few
months there were more than 150 staff (engineers and office staff) and yet K’s
habit continued unabated and tempers amongst us would flare up but then since he was our senior and the boss
of a division we were never able to tell him bluntly on his face, though we
have been giving indications of displeasure in subtle ways…like if he is coming
to anyone’s room then that person would hide his cigarettes, drinks or eatables
and tell that he does not have any to spare but then K was equally smart and would somehow ferret out the hidden cigarette
and drinks.

Image courtesy Google Images

Then one day when we all were fed up to the core we decided that we
need to teach K a lesson that he would never forgets for ages to come. This
task was left to one of my colleague who used to lose the entire packet of
cigarette K on many occasions and the plan was quite simple but effective. What
we did is that we bought a packet of cigarette and removed the tobacco from few
cigarettes and put in match stick head and refilled the same. All the
cigarettes were replaced inside the packet and left casually on the table within
the room. As usual our bumming friend K dropped into my friend’s room and found
the packet of cigarette on the table which he casually pocketed thinking that
he has taken it without our knowledge and walked away. Eight of us were now
waiting for the inevitable to happen since K’s room was just across our row of
room…then we heard a loud shout as the match flared up and burnt his fingers.
We guys were stifling our giggles and we did not give much attention to the shout and acted
as though nothing has happened and were waiting for fireworks to begin from K
but then nothing was forthcoming. Then couple of hours later we saw K with a thick
bandage on his fingers trying to avoid looking into our eyes. We learnt later
that he tried smoking five more cigarettes from the same packet and three of
the cigarettes burnt between his fingers. That was the last time that K ever
asked for cigarettes from us and for that matter from that day he totally
avoided us till the end of our contract….good riddance. Indeed a lesson learnt by him. I know what we
did was not fair but then we were quite young and this could have been avoided by
a firm no in the first place.

About Me

A widely traveled, an engineer by profession and reaching the milestone of becoming a senior citizen, living each day of life as it comes. Life is short so enjoy while it lasts. Love wildlife adventures and visiting new places